Had a great day troutfishing today. i decided to take a break from spinner fishing andjust kick back and toss on a good ol' nightcrawler on a #8 eagle claw baitholder. Tossed it out in the small hole i was fishing didn't even get my rod propped up on a stick yet i felt tap so i got my rod ready to jerk i felt another tap so i gave it a good rip all the sudden my drag took off i thought i just had a snag and the tension set my drag off. I caught a flash and saw him trying to go upstream with my line thrashing all around i started shaking i just grabbed ahold of my drag and gave it a twist to loosen it up a lil more so i didnt snap it i was only using 6lb berkley trilene xt and a 4'8" ugly stick. I Let him swim around for about 10minutes till he tired out. Got him right up to the bank slid down the little hill 2 grab ahold of him he started thrashing again and snap my line broke he was only in about 4" of water and sliding back down in so i jumped in the creek with him man was that cold somehow i managed 2 get a grip on him i tossed him up outa the water he started sliding back down the hill so i tackled him lol and layed on him for a minute till he calmed down and i could get a finger up under the gill than i gave him a little toss to get him up on the bank. All along i knew he was big but I had no clue how big i reached in my vest pulled out a tape measure 23 1/4" beautiful rainbowby far the biggest trout i've ever caught and one of the biggest i know of ever caught out of the stream I was fishing in. So now I have a taxidermy bill this is one time im not upset about spending some money lol. He had great girth to him also i dont really know how much he weighed but i'd say he went atleast 5lb. That made this fishermans day thats for sure

thats a deffinate good fish.

Thats an awesome rainbow you got there and i must say i have never seen a rainbow that dark before and never have i seen one with a dark line like that along its side. But i think it maybe a brood stock cause if you look at the tail it isnt pointy it's kinda boxy which tends to happen to fish that are raised in hatcheries cause they get too big and they wear their tails away on the gravel and concrete.But either way its still a beautiful fish. Good Job

Great story Matt

Matt and I are going fishing in 1 hour.

Great looking trout! Congrat's

Good Trout you have there young fellow, Congrats ! I will be giving the brookies a shot this afternoon.

That's a fine trout there Deerslayer... Look at all the SPOTS on him...!!.. Real Purty.... Congrats on a nice fish...

Hard to beat a nice juicy crawler for those BIG trout......

Nice fish!!! I caught a rainbow about the same size when I was 10 on a fishing trip in northern California. "I was only using 6lb berkley trilene xt" LOL in my book 6 lbs line is a little heavy for trout. I caught my big rainbow on a 2 lbs trilene xl leader talk about being worried about it breaking off. Then when I was 16 I was on a fishing trip in souther missouri and hooked into a 8lbs 1 oz brown trout on 4lbs trilene ut. Ill tell ya deffinately invest in some good hip waders and a landing net without either theres no way I could land big trout.

Good lookin fish there 223 and great story. Sounds like there was lots of excitement and would have been a good place for a video camera. Way to go.

I got a nice fish today. Not that big though but close and i dont have the great story to go with it. Ohh well. Nice fish though.